The invention relates to an electrical socket with the features of the preamble of claim 1.
Sockets of this type are also known by the designation “Western socket” and are commonly used in communication and data technology. The interaction of the socket with a corresponding connector allows a releasable electrical connection to be established for the transmission of electrical signals. Increasingly higher transmission rates are being used for this, with the risk of an interfering electrical signal coupling occurring within the socket between pairs of conductors, with an adverse effect on the transmission quality. The signal coupling is both of a capacitive nature and of an inductive nature.
To keep such couplings down, it is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,647 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,362,257 for certain conductors to cross over within the contact module. Complex conductor guides are used for this purpose, with the effect that production of the sockets involves considerable expense.
DE 199 38 367 A1 describes a socket in which eight conductors are arranged next to one another, a crossing region being provided by means of a circuit board laminated on both sides, which can be fixed to the contact module, in order that the conductors with the numbers 3 and 6 cross one another. For this purpose, these conductors must be interrupted before the double-sided circuit board is applied, and the circuit board must be inserted into a receptacle of the contact module. Such a configuration of the socket consequently also involves considerable production costs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,923 and EP-A-0 982 815 disclose electrical sockets in which a housing surrounds a contact module which comprises a number of electrical conductors and contact elements, it being possible for the contact elements to be contacted by associated plug contacts of a connector. Two conductors respectively form a pair of conductors for the transmission of a high-frequency electrical signal. The contact module has a multi-layer electrical circuit board, into which the contact elements are inserted. The contact elements respectively form a contact spring by the end regions projecting beyond the circuit board and facing toward a space for the connector. The circuit board carries compensation capacitors for the capacitive coupling of conductors of different pairs of conductors. The circuit board also carries conductor tracks which form the electrical conductors of at least two pairs of conductors. In a first conductor track section, a first conductor track of the first pair of conductors is at a smaller distance from a first conductor track of the second pair of conductors than from the second conductor track of the second pair of conductors, and, in a second conductor track section, the first conductor track of the first pair of conductors is at a smaller distance from the second conductor track of the second pair of conductors than from the first conductor track of the second pair of conductors.
It is an object of the present invention to develop an electrical socket of the type stated at the beginning in such a way that it can be produced at low cost and the risk of signal coupling between different pairs of conductors is reduced.